MOSCOW (AP) - A Russian Orthodox bishop ordered a school to publicly
burn "heretical'' writings by leading Orthodox theologians - an act
highlighting the church's deep internal divisions, the Moscow Times said
Wednesday.

The books by the priests - Alexander Schmemann, John Meyendorf and Alexander
Menn - were confiscated from students in a religious school and burned
before their eyes last month on the orders of Bishop Nikon of Yekaterinburg,
the Times and other reports said.

Nikon, the top church official in the Ural Mountains region 1,500 kilometers
(900 miles) from Moscow, also has reportedly ordered a dissident priest
defrocked for refusing "to help dethrone dangerous and heretical delusions,''
the newspaper said.

Nikon and the church leadership have denied burning the books, but several
church officials confirmed the incident privately, the Times said. One
local church member sent a complaint to the Russian Orthodox Church's Patriarchate
in Moscow.

The conflict is the latest sign of an ongoing battle between the church's
conservative and moderate wings. Conservatives who hold key posts in the
hierarchy oppose ecumenism and have resisted contacts with most Western
churches, including some branches of Orthodoxy.

While some consider Menn's writings controversial, Schmemann and Meyendorf
are generally praised as the church's most important 20th century theologians.
The two served as consecutive deans of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological
Seminary in New York.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II has frequently expressed his admiration
for Schmemann and Meyendorf, whose books are studied in many ecclesiastical
schools across Russia.

"Now to hear that a bishop of the church, now living in freedom,
is capable of an act so repugnant and godless fills me with dismay and
anger,'' Serge Schmemann, the late theologian's son and a Pulitzer Prize
winning U.S. journalist, told the paper.

Schmemann's widow, Juliana, has sent a letter to Alexy asking him to
clarify the situation, the Times said.